Thursday, May 17, 2012

Reload, reload, reload! (The Shaman is a Schizo After All?)

Everyone with an interest in these subjects knows that there is an overlap between “shamanic” or “spiritual” perceptions and so-called “schizophrenic”
ones. I have always assumed, without question, that (as I think RD Laing said),
the shaman is able to swim in waters which the schizophrenic is drowning in. In other words, that schizophrenia was a mishandled or distorted experience
of deeper, “shamanic” reality.

But what if the reverse is the case? What if shamans and
gurus and spiritual people are simply those who have so fully adapted to - learned
to navigate and communicate - their schizoid delusions that they are able to
create (or connect with) believers in it, leading to sub-communities and counter-cultures in
which delusional thought-forms became experiential reality?

Uhhhhh….

I’m not saying this is what I think. I have known a least a couple
of shaman-guru types who do seem a lot more balanced and sane than, say, Richard
Dawkins. All I’m saying is—how can we be sure?

It’s a bit of a paradox, because if delusional belief is
powerful enough to “create” false realities, then that idea itself confirms the schizoid/shamanic
view of reality. In Dawkins’ view of things, the belief in God isn’t enough to
create strong evidence for the existence of God, and so Dawkins looks like a chump and a poor scientist because he dismisses anything that challenges his argument, like those zealots who refused to look into Galilleo's telescope because they already knew he was insane. What I am positing would not please Dawkins and his ilk any more than it would your average New Ager: that belief is strong enough to create mental projections which will confirm that belief,
but which are not sourced in anything objectively real.

This would have to allow the fundamental premise of both shamanic
and schizophrenic experience: that everything is consciousness and that physical
reality is therefore subject to change in accord with changes in (our)
consciousness. However, if the assumption of a separate self, soul, or entity (including
a Creator God) from which consciousness arises
is erroneous, or at least unnecessary to the fundamental premise, then every
subsequent perception that’s predicated on that idea (of a creator or experiencer) would also be false.

God,
spirits, angels, devils, the psyche, archetypes, shamans, gurus—anything in
short that has any sort of empirical authority or meaning within the larger
context of a living consciousness system—would all just be elaborate thought forms generated
by that fundamental schizophrenia which underlies all “spiritual” and “shamanic”
belief systems whatsoever.

Holy false reality models, Batman! Is it time to go back to the scrying
mirror!?

It's more than a little paradoxical, but paradox is the lingua franca of the border regions. You have come to a leap of faith, but have you ever known anyone to take that leap in good faith and regret it? That's faith, not belief! Could you turn back now, if you wanted to?

*sigh* it's exhausting to be sure. Everyone is a little mad in a mad world. I think the politely insane most likely clump together.. but we're clever bastards.. who ever heard of something bad happening to emotionally unstable artistic/linguistic savants who are intellect heavy and always have their own death on the brain? We can create our own world, and will if one of us pursues holography and has a scientific slant. Sounds pretty cheery and promising to me.

I would posit that the Sanskrit word "ruci" or taste, has everything to do with it. We will gravitate naturally to our own sense of beauty and meaning, the clearer we get. It is all experiential and almost impossible to put into words.

But", those who say, "there is no God, or, "one must be free of this and that," are quite different from those who, with childlike eyes sometimes say, Hey, if there IS a God, or whatever, SHOW ME. And then wait for the doors of perception (or fun) to open. It's a matter of taste. The spirit does it, and we are along for the ride, much like riding on the back of an animal, lol...don't you think?

the child's perspective yes; then all questions are pointed only at the here and now: what is this? why is this like this? how do i do this?

there is no question about the meaning or purpose of existence: it is the body that asks, not the "mind."

I reckon the "mind" (conceptual thinking) cannot exist without meaning & purpose, however. That means to return to that innocence of pure seeing/riding, conceptual thought - along with the original concept of "I" - has to go.

If conceptual thought has to go, then wouldn't all thought have to go, if all thought is metaphorical/conceptual? Perhaps with the thought that all thought is metaphor one can indulge in conceptual thought with the thought in the back of one's (concept) of mind that it's all gobbledygook with daily serving of neti neti on the menu. Maybe there is no difference between being crazy like a coconut and being crazy like a fox after all.